Despite the increased acceptance of “choruses” and “contemporary Christian music” in a variety of evangelical churches, I still see and hear laments about the loss of hymnals, complaints about the volume of that new-fangled music, and concerns about all these young people who grow up without knowing the traditional hymns and songs of their denomination. Now, as someone who loves to belt the alto in a 4-part rendition of “I’ll Fly Away” and had at least the first verse and usually more of a significant percentage of the Baptist Hymnal memorized by the time I was an adult, I’m certainly not going to argue that there is no value in those music traditions. However, I think that we older Christians too often dismiss the value of learning and singing new songs of worship.

The Bible tells us to sing to the Lord a “new song” 5 times: Psalm 33:3, Psalm 96: 1, Psalm 98:1, Psalm 149:1, and Isaiah 42:10. Besides these injunctions, there are other references in both the Psalms and Revelation to worshipers singing a new song of praise. So that leads me to two responses. One is to seek to be open to new songs of praise, even if they’re not my style of music. The other is to seek to understand why. Why would God want us to sing new songs to Him, and not just the old familiar songs we have?

The first reason, I think, is for the creators. Those who have been inspired to create still often benefit from encouragement, so these verses serve as that encouragement. They affirm that need to compose and point out that there is value in new worship music.

However, I believe that these verses are not just for composers, but also have meaning for all of us. When I sing songs that are extremely familiar, I sometimes (maybe often) discover that I’m not paying attention to what I’m doing. My mouth and lungs are engaged along with a subconscious portion of my brain, but the primary part of me is not there. When the music or the words are not so familiar, I have no choice but to think about what I’m singing, and thinking about what I’m singing is what makes it worship.

Another factor, I believe, is that God is very aware that language and culture change over time. Music that means a lot to one generation may not mean so much to another. Even though I realized recently that I can still sing every word of “The Solid Rock” from memory, I’ve discovered that singing “On Christ the solid rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand” means more to me when it is part of the driving bridge of “The Rock Won’t Move” than it ever has in the old hymn I’ve sung for 45 or so years. I believe that’s because I am a child of the 70’s and 80’s when it comes to music and that driving beat reaches my heart in a way that the melody and rhythms of that old hymn fail to do. In recent years, I’ve found myself crying during worship, largely due to some major family issues, but in a way that is responding to the assurances of the words of songs like “God Is Able” or “I Will Look Up.” I can’t imagine having the same reaction to any but one or two of the traditional hymns.

To anyone not convinced that new music is valuable as culture and language change, I’m inclined to ask when they last sang a motet at church.

The value of new music that is culturally relevant and uses current language is greater for new Christians or those who are not Christians  yet, but are willing to visit a church. English has changed in the past 200 or so years, and some of those traditional hymns use words or phraseology that are meaningless to those who didn’t grow up in church (and even to some who did). Accessible, authentic worship is attractive and helps new Christians learn to worship.

As a missionary kid, it occurs to me as I think about these issues that it is incumbent upon anyone who is ministering cross culturally to encourage the creation of new worship music by the new Christians rather than just translating their own songs to the new language. Even as we seek to communicate in someone’s heart language, we should encourage people to worship using music that touches their hearts, even if it’s not the music that touches ours.

A final piece of advice to any worship leaders who might read this: if the song has been done at least three times in recent months and people aren’t really singing, either the music is too loud or the song is a poor choice for congregational singing or both. These things can be fixed.